I swear I'm low-maintenance: cleaning makeup brushes

Today on the low-maintenance woman, we’re going to discuss the utterly obvious: Cleaning of makeup brushes.

They get dirty — not 2- year-old-with-spaghetti-o’s dirty, or dirt-bike-riding dirty, or even I-need-to-dust dirty. It’s a very delicate, invisible kind of lady-dirty (not dirty lady): of course the makeup itself, and then little bits of oils and moisturizers from your face. Possibly some dust, and maybe even tiny bits of spit if you are ever over-zealous with your translucent powder application and happen to sneeze in the middle of things. Also, plaster dust if you are caught by surprise while wiping down the tops of the medicine cabinets in your new apartment. (Believe me, when that happens you will be glad you have some brush cleaner at hand.)

Now, I’ve had my Bare Escentuals Get Started kit for over a year, and the last time I cleaned any of my makeup brushes was . . . well, let’s not talk about that. While I was in Boston over the holidays I stopped into Sephora and picked up a bottle of their Brush Shampoo. When I got back to Baltimore, I cleaned most of my brushes. The brush shampoo was super-easy to use. Spray on the brush, wipe off with a tissue or cotton cloth, then rinse, reshape and dry. Since mine were quite dirty, they got sprayed & wiped multiple times, until the tissue was coming away mostly clean. Even so, I was still amazed by the amount of color that came off of my flawless face brush during the rinse, which has been used almost every day for the last year.

I have to say, I knew that cleaning brushes was a good thing to do, but I was completely caught by surprise to find that the flawless face brush now feels different. The best way to describe it, I think, is that it feels lighter against my skin; this leads me to believe that this is because the buildup of dirt & makeup is gone. Thus, I’ve put my bottle of brush shampoo on the shelf right above the brushes, next to my moisturizers. I look at it every day, and I’ve made a mental note to try and remember to clean my brushes every 6-8 weeks (ish).

At $10, this was a great value and I definitely recommend it. It’ll definitely last me a long time. Makeup brushes always seem so expensive to me, so it’s a good thing to keep them in good shape.

Next time on the low-maintenance woman, we will probably discuss use of the Bare Escentuals Champagne Diamonds kit I recieved from Mom at Christmas. Most likely I will first take this out for a spin when I get ready to go out for dinner one Friday during restaurant week. Good thing I still have the DVD that comes with the get started kit (which includes some advanced eye techniques, a good thing for those of us who tend to stick with one color).